This invention relates to the field of personal leather goods (PLG's). Such items are usually carried by a person and used to organize or protect that person's effects. The personal leather goods category may include wallets, billfolds, checkbook covers, portfolios, binders, coin purses, document cases, business card cases, small photoframes for travel, and the like. More particularly though, this invention relates to those leather goods listed above and others which require a pair of panel sections or covers to hinge relative to one another (much like the covers of a book open and close) to permit access to pockets, papers, etc. positioned between those panels or covers. Thus, PLG's relating to the instant invention also include spectacle or sunglasses cases having a hinged cover, key cases, and the like.
Characterizing the sorts of goods which would most benefit from the subject invention is the use of a leather-like material (leather, split leather, and the class of materials commonly referred to as "artificial leather," for example polyurethane sponge leather, vinyl leather and the like) as the dominant or most obvious material from which the item is made. Such PLG's have a panel with such leather-like materials over one or both of its broad surfaces, the leather-like materials being stitched to adjacent layers which may include a fabric liner, or a liner of complementary or contrasting leather-like material or a rigidifying thermo-plastic or fiberboard layer.
As characterized above, most PLG's require one or both panel constructions to bend in order to provide this hinging action. While the leather-like materials and lining are specifically assembled and selected to permit this hinging action, inevitably during the useful life of the item in question, the bending panel (or at least the visible surface of the leather-like layers) becomes cracked and worn through constant flexing along the hinge line, or through rubbing of the surface material at the corners or edges at the hinge line. General scuffing and overall wrinkling of the leather-like panels is to be expected, and may be part of the appeal of such constructions. But, the flexing edge takes the brunt of the wear, thus reducing both the aesthetic desirability of the item in question or indeed its practical useful life.